In this month’s VVP Optimism Corner, we stray from the markets and technological advances to tell you about a remarkable story that might have caught your eye. Rose Girone, who died last month at age 113, was the last survivor of the Holocaust. Rose was born in 1912 in Janow, Austrian Poland (now Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine after post-war border changes. Her family moved to Hamburg, where they opened a theatrical costume shop, and she learned to knit from an aunt. It was a skill she used her whole life. In 1938, Rose was married (an arranged marriage) and moved to Breslau, but shortly thereafter, the Nazis launched Kristallnacht, where everything in the city was smashed and set on fi re. After that, her husband was arrested and sent to Buchenwald; Rose was spared because she was pregnant with their daughter Reha. With some amazing luck and tenacity, her husband was released and their family obtained Chinese exit visas that allowed them to escape to Shanghai, one of the few open ports that still accepted Jews. By 1941, though, the Japanese took over Shanghai and set up a mile-square ghetto for the city’s 20,000 Jewish refugees. Life was brutal there; their family of 3 sleeping in one bed, rampant with cockroaches, bedbugs and rats crawling over them while they slept. But Rose never complained (a hallmark of her long life). It wasn’t until after the war in 1947 that they could take refuge in America.

With no money or possessions, they had to start again from scratch. When she got to America, she showed incredible ingenuity and perseverance once again, and despite speaking almost no English, she got a job knitting. Her marriage didn’t last, but eventually Rose met another man named Jack Girone. She opened her own knitting shop and taught classes for the rest of her life. Some of her classes were the most sought-after in New York.

According to the Economist magazine, she offered these instructions for a good life. Anything you could fix with money was not a problem. Nothing was so very bad that something good couldn’t come from it. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Her recipe for longevity was good for children (she said you had to be lucky with that). On and she said you should eat lots of dark chocolate.

Rose’s story inspired us…we hope it does for you too.

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